European Legal Method

In Europe there is, and has been for some years, a seemingly renewed debate on methodology in legal research. In the first years of its existence, EU law was generally perceived as rather superficial, immature, and fragmentary, with many gaps and inconsistencies. Now, EU law is ripening and the mutual embeddedness of EU law and the national law of its Member States is becoming more intense. It is therefore both more possible, and more necessary, to identify and explain the legal method that is applied by European legal actors, in particular legal scholars and courts, when analyzing EU law and the law of Member States within the scope of EU legal application. This book brings together essays by leading legal scholars from a number of European countries regarding European legal method(s). It is the second publication within the European Legal Methods research project and is the result of a conference held in November 2011. The contributors are all focused on different legal disciplines and represent different legal cultures and research styles, partly related to different geographical backgrounds.